Nearly A Third Of Private Sector Jobs Added Were Temporary

The private sector added just 84,000 jobs in June, a big miss from some projections that had it topping 100,000 for the month. More than 25,000 of those jobs came in temporary "help services" positions.

Overall, private-sector hiring is down both sequentially and from the year-ago period. Last month, the private sector added 105,000 positions, including revisions upward this month. And in June 2011, the private sector added 102,000 jobs.

The staggering temporary hiring represents both good and bad in the report. On one hand, the temporary health services industry added almost 33,000 more jobs compared with June 2011. It's also a nearly 7,000 month-over-month increase.

But the fact that nearly a third of the total jobs added were temporary means that they might not become permanent. For comparison's sake, 17.7 percent of the new private-sector jobs in May were of a temporary nature. The estimate for June would make it so 31.5 percent of jobs added were temporary.

Job losses in manufacturing of non-durable goods, general merchandise stores and information services contributed most to the decline. Some of the notables:

Manufacturing of non-durable goods dropped 3,000 jobs in June.

Information service jobs plunged 8,000.

Retail trade positions dipped about 5,400.

One of the biggest increases was in a temporary category — temporary help services, which flew up more than 25,000.

Meanwhile, government hiring fell off 4,000 jobs, which is an improvement from the 28,000 government loss in May.

Alan B. Krueger, the chairman of the council of White House economic advisers, wrote on the White House's official blog that are "no quick fixes to the problems we face that were more than a decade in the making."

"Employment is growing but it is not growing fast enough given the jobs deficit caused by the deep recession," Krueger wrote.

Here's the full private-sector picture since June 2008, as provided by the White House: